


A Different Kind of War

by likeseriouslyalyx



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Johnlock - Freeform, LIKE A LOT OF ANGST, POV First Person, POV Sherlock, Sickfic, Slash Goggles, That's really all it is, but not really, nonmedical medicalness, ummm - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 12:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10335164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeseriouslyalyx/pseuds/likeseriouslyalyx
Summary: Some problems are impossible to solve. Some wars simply cannot be won.





	

The world is dark. I can’t focus, can’t breath, oh god each breath is agony, my entire body spasms, trying to break away from itself, from the pounding in my head that won’t stop. I tell myself to move, get up, but I can’t force my body to obey. Tears squeeze from my eyes. So thirsty. I lick my lips, tongue like sandpaper, now tinged with salt. 

 

“John!” I shout, when I regain the ability to talk. Panic laces my voice. I hear him drop something on the couch, his laptop, why is he still up? What time is it? hear the heavy footfalls down the hall, he’s wearing his slippers, see him silhouetted against the hallway light. He checks my pulse while talking to emergency services on the phone. 

 

“221B Baker Street, yeah, um, my flatmate. He’s been getting these headaches all week, he keeps passing out. No. What? No. Yeah, it’s 55, I’m a doctor, of course I’m doing it right! Okay, yes I’m calm. Sorry, sorry, mate, thanks.”

 

“I’ll be fine, John, this isn’t necessary.” The intensity of the headache is already subsiding, leaving me with just a dull ache which flares every time I move.I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision. The clock on my bedside table flashes 11:58. He pulls me out of bed despite my protests. I swat away his attempt to carry me, yet he keeps his hand firm on my arm as we walk down the stairs. He sits beside me in the ambulance.

 

“Stage four” “Low white blood count” “Spreading fast” “So sorry” “We’re sorry” “Sorry”. Their words blur into a montage of sorry’s in my mind. Damn their sorry’s! What good do they do? They care, they all care, I don’t want them to care. 

 

“Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock” I can still hear Mycroft’s words in my head.

 

I watch John’s face, the way his jaw goes slack when the doctor gives his diagnosis. His hands fist then relax at his sides four times before remaining clenched, frozen. “How long?” I ask. Of course my eyes are on him, the only one who has ever gotten through my carefully built defenses. “A month, optimistically”. 

 

John made as if to go after me when I turned and ran from the room, then decided against it. I knew he would stay to discuss my treatment, if there’s anything they can do to draw this out a bit longer. The doctor’s eyes told me all I needed to know, that it’s too late already. I have no desire to draw the pain out any longer than necessary.

 

I’m in my mind palace, compiling all the information I have on my condition when John comes in. There’s surprisingly little of it, and the irony strikes me as slightly amusing. Of course the thing that kills me will be my greatest fear; that of the unknown. John has attempted to clean his face, to hide the extent of his emotion from me, but his eyes are still red around the rims. I appreciate the effort, so I don’t comment, and he puts on a smile.

 

I refuse to be hospitalized, to receive any form of treatment. John puts up a fight at first, but when he gives up I can see the relief in the set of his shoulders. I want to stay in the only place I’ve ever known as home, and he wants this time alone with me.

 

Lestrade calls the next day with a case. I know John’s informed him of my condition, I heard him make the call before coming into the flat that night. John looks shaken when I pull my coat on and grab my scarf, as if I have no right to carry on with life as I did before.

 

“Come on, John, this one’s at least a six!” I hate the way my voice pitches up at the end. I don’t want him to know how unsure I am of his response. He stares at the ground for a few seconds, and I count each one with the clock I can hear from my room. Tick, tock, he’s going to say I’m too sick, tick, tock, he can’t make me stay in this flat, tick, tock, I need to get out, this place is starting to feel like a cage.

 

When he doesn’t look up, I say, “I need this. My work is my life. I’m going to die, John, but I’d rather not be consumed by that until the prospect is imminent. I’m going out, I will solve this case. Come with me or don’t, but I’d- I’d really rather you did.” I try to inject a note of nonchalance into my voice, but it still comes out as more of a plea. 

 

He flinches at the word die, but I don’t see the point in sugar coating. I grab the stupid deerstalker off it’s hook, and swish my coat in a swirl as I stride out the door. Time to go be Sherlock Holmes.

 

John’s hand rests on my knee in the cab, but we don’t look at each other. I can almost hear the thoughts clammering in his mind, but I pretend to be oblivious. He acts as though he cannot feel my leg shaking. We both put on a good show of looking out our windows. 

 

The case is simple, nothing over a three in reality. I throw an incredulous glare Lestrade’s way- even Scotland Yard should have got this one- and see from his crossed arms and awkward shrug that they have, indeed, solved it. I square my shoulders, smirk mockingly at Donovan, and work the case as if my life depends on it.

 

“She worked in an office, data entry. There are marks on her wrists from the desk, but only her pointer and index fingers are smoothed, meaning she doesn’t type words, she types numbers. She has three dogs, no, two and a cat. Her husband’s recently passed away, yet she keeps her wedding ring on, sentimental then. Not still grieving, though, her mascara isn’t waterproof. Obviously he died of an illness, probably ca-” the words won’t come out, I can’t say it, my mind’s gone blank, my mouth is still moving. I feel hands under my arms, supporting me, and I twist away. 

 

“No, no, please, no,” I have no control over myself, can’t stop the pleas from spilling out. I eventually register that it is John’s arms holding me, and sag back into him. He puts his arm around me and leads me to a bench. I hide my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar musky scent of his cologne mixed with sweat and something in there that is uniquely John.

 

He doesn’t say anything, just strokes my back, and for once I’m content to let him baby me. I don’t register a taxi arriving, or the ride home.

 

John helps me up the steps and onto the couch. He brings me tea and two morphine tablets, which I dry swallow before falling asleep.

 

At first, it’s easy enough to carry on as if nothing has changed. I want to forget, delete my diagnosis, but it’s getting harder and harder to focus. The headaches, which used to be sporadic, intensify and stop going away with the pills John feeds me. On the Third Night of Knowing, John finds me on my knees in front of the toilet, retching up blood. Neither of us mention it, but from then on he sleeps in my room.

 

My mind stops letting me sleep after that. On one of those nights, I’m lying awake, John is sleeping beside me, one arm thrown over my chest as if to hold me captive here. I think, maybe I wouldn’t mind this so much if it was only my transport that was deteriorating. Yet every day, I can feel my mind working slower, my focus becoming less sharp. I find whole sections of my mind palace drifting away, fading, becoming unreachable. So I cannot sleep, in fear that the night will take away more than I’m ready to lose.

 

For another week we fight this battle, going about life as normally as possible, though we hardly leave the flat. We make small talk about cases we’ll work on next week, next month, next year. Mrs Hudson brings meals up every evening. Her eyes are always red, and she holds whispered conversations in the hall with John when she thinks I can’t hear. Lestrade phones in with a cold case every other day, emailing pictures of evidence. Molly visits most days, sometimes to give me autopsy results, other times she just stands in the doorway for a few seconds, before nodding and walking away. As if she’s just checking I am still here. John slips me pills in the morning with my tea. He places cool flannels on my forehead when I’m lying on the couch solving a case. He calls Scotland Yard with my verdict when I’m done. I hate the way they tiptoe around me, as if I am fragile. I hate how their pretenses slip. I hate that my own pretense feels like it could fall away at any moment, like I could break down at any moment, because I don’t want to die. 

 

Ten Days After, I wake John early in the morning and tell him to get dressed.He bites his lip when he looks at me but does as I ask. We get a taxi to the outskirts of London, and walk through the park to a bench by a duck pond. We sit in silence, just watch the sun come up. John puts his arm around my back, fisting his hand in the fabric of my coat. I don’t keep track of the time that passes, I let myself let go of everything in the comfort of John’s solidarity next to me. Eventually, the blue sky turns to grey, and he pulls me up. I stumble twice as we walk back to the roadside, and eventually John hooks his arm through mine to support me. As we sit in the taxi on the way home, I tell him in a voice that shakes much more than I’d like, “John, the vision in my left eye is gone. It’s been fading all day.” 

 

He swallows twice before giving me a half smile. “At least it’s your weaker eye.” But we both know it won’t be long now.

 

Then, three weeks after diagnosis. John’s in the kitchen making tea, I’m watching him. Next moment I’m on the bathroom floor and I can taste blood in my mouth, how did I get here? Can’t see, eyes won’t open, so dark. Dark is peaceful, I don’t want to leave the dark.

 

I hear the sirens before the ambulance is close enough to hear, I knew this would happen, John would call, not trusting himself to look after me. He should trust himself more. I want to tell him, tell him how I trust him with my life, more than that, with his own life. Want to tell him how I care, how I don’t care if Mycroft knows that I care. 

 

“John…” His jaw is clenched, he sees my pain at not being able to speak, and I read his, I see all the things he wants to say. For the moment, we are both muted, him by emotion, me by this intruder in my body.

 

Cold, so cold. Through my functioning eye, I make out a sea of blue, machines, tubes, beds. Then, breaking through the haze, my hand, my fingers, intertwined with his. He knows I am awake, he squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back, yes, I’m here,thank god you’re here, don’t leave me, I wouldn’t dream of it. 

 

And, unspoken, under the surface of the gesture, this is it. You won’t be going back to Baker Street.

 

The doctor comes around, he talks mostly to John, which is good as I don’t think I could force my mind to listen, to process new information. My mind, the one thing I have always had complete control over. One phrase breaks through the haze of morphine and cancer.

 

“You should say your goodbye’s, he won’t last long.” I hear the doctor’s footsteps retreating.

 

I clear my throat, trying to hide the involuntary wince, stupid body.

 

“John... I’m afraid.”

 

“Shh, Sherlock,” He’s forcing himself to keep it together, like he’s the one that’s dying, not me. He flinches, and I realise I’ve spoken aloud.

 

“Don’t- please don’t say that, god, Sherlock, I would swap places with you in an instant!” I instinctively pull back from the harshness in his voice, then inwardly curse the lack of control I have over my movements. He notices, of course he does.

 

“See, I have to- to see you like this, to watch you, watch you leave me here. I was so alone, and you, you saved me. I don’t know who I am without you here. Please, please, please, don’t want you to leave, don’t go, don’t go, take me with you, please Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock,” He’s lost it by the end, shoulders shaking with his sobs as he murmurs my name over and over as if he can save me with sheer willpower. He rests his head on the bed beside me, I stroke his hair. The gesture is natural, the morphine, taking away my restrictions, my mind deduces.

 

John pulls himself together, but for some reason I don’t want to lose the physical contact. I tug his hand. He seems to get what I want, and shuffles me over so he can lie down beside me.

 

“John,” I’m fading fast, don’t want to leave, don’t want to leave him. I never thought I would be anyone’s best friend.

 

I remember the day we met, the insane desire to impress this soldier with the psychosomatic limp. I remember his enthusiasm when I took him on the case, my surprise when he complimented my deductions instead of calling me a freak. I remember the way he cared so damn much about everything, about me. I remember his smile, the way his adam's apple moved when he laughed. All those moments I swore I was above remembering.

 

One last thing. I need one more thing. “John, I want- I want to see you,” the words are only a gasped whisper, but he hears, props himself up on one elbow. One of my shaking hands cups his cheek, memorising the texture of his skin one last time. Need to tell him.

 

“I love you, John.”

 

“I love you too, god, I love you,” he chokes out.

 

“I’m so glad I get to spend the rest of my life with you, thank you.” I choke back a sob that my body does not have the energy to produce.

 

“John, goodbye.” My voice sounds foreign, only a whisper now.

 

He takes a shaky breath, he knows this is it, I know he’ll struggle, I know, as much as I wish the opposite, that this will cause him pain.

 

But John, my doctor, my soldier, my blogger, my friend, he is so strong. This will not break him.

 

“Goodbye, Sherlock.” His tears mingle with mine. He gives my hand one last squeeze and I hang on to him, as if this can keep me with him for another lifetime.

 

I meet his eyes, another infinite moment, reading the words we don’t have the time to say.

 

My consciousness fades. In my mind, I walk down a wooden hallway, into a room with two chairs, a fire burning warmly underneath a mantel. John is drinking tea, his feet up, and an irish setter is lying by the fire. I smile, “Redbeard!” The dog looks up, loping over to me as I move to stand beside John, placing my hand over his and grinning at him. He returns my smile, his face clear of pain and worry. 

 

This is the last thing I know.


End file.
